June 13, 2018

Stuff

You’ve got it. We’ve got it. Seems that nearly everyone’s got it—stuff, I mean. Stuff is the stuff that we have sitting around our houses, garages, and especially basements. Some people go so far as to have stuff stored in a separate facility across town, or at an in-law’s house strewn across their front yard, or at any number of Auxiliary Stuff Storage Locations.

Rich people have stuff, and usually lots of it. Interestingly, though, even poor people seem to have lots of stuff, although stuff of a lesser quality or luster. Young people have stuff, too, but old people generally have even more stuff (out-of-style stuff, to be sure). Before you’re even born, people are holding “showers” and giving you stuff. Each year you’ll celebrate your age, and they will give you more stuff. And after you’re gone, they’ll bicker over the stuff you’ve left behind.

In our own home, we have stuff stored behind other stuff. Some stuff sits on top of other stuff, while other stuff just hides behind stuff. Some stuff is stuffed behind stuff, while still other stuff is out on display. But the older we get, the more we live, the more stuff we seem to have.

It’s not all bad, really. Some stuff is pretty important. Take refrigerators, for instance. That’s the kind of stuff that we all need—what’s inside them, that is—and toilets and furniture and forks and cars and stamps and beds and a pretty huge, boring, and definitely too-long list of stuff that we actually need around.

But what drives me crazy is the rest of the stuff: the stuff that we just accumulate, like knick-knacks…tall ones and short ones, big ones and small, ugly ones and stylish things your wife got at the mall, dusty stuff and old stuff and broken stuff and kids’ stuff, pet stuff and loaned stuff and present stuff and forgotten stuff.

Whenever I hear about someone who likes to shop, I picture a big pile of stuff. Isn’t that really what shopping is, driving around trading money for more stuff? Drive it home and put it in amongst all your other stuff. And eventually, the total inventory of stuff gets quite overwhelming. This is because of the sticky nature of most stuff.

The most dangerous combination in a marriage is a shopper married to a pack rat. One makes a hobby out of buying stuff while the other refuses to part with stuff. The home of such a couple gets stuffed with stuff.

What can one do with all this stuff? Cram it and stuff it and store it and hide it. Or one can sell it. This is interesting because who in the world would want someone’s stuff when everybody already has more than enough stuff of their own? I know. It is a perplexing puzzle, but people with stuff actually buy the stuff of other people with stuff at events called garage sales (although garages are not for sale), yard sales, or auctions. People line up to buy your stuff. They are even willing to pay twenty-six cents for stuff that cost you $450.

Or, you can give away some stuff. Pack it and wrap it and box it and donate it. The taxman will even give you a credit for giving away the stuff. This is so you will have more money to buy more stuff, and the government can tax the purchases and get money to buy stuff of its own, such as $600 toilet seats and $345 screw drivers. Given this, it is easy to see why even the government has garage sales (called federal liquidations) once in while: to sell us the stuff they bought with the money they took from us when we bought our stuff. It’s a stuff cycle of perpetual renown.

And that brings me to recycling. This is a concept where other people express concern over what you do with your stuff. (They don’t care what you do with it while you possess it, only when you discard it.) They say some stuff should be ground up or melted or something and made into other stuff. It’s another stuff cycle.

It seems, now that I have taken such an in-depth, scientific look into the nature of stuff, that stuff is like a bad case of athlete’s foot—very difficult to get rid of. Take a trip someplace, and there your wife is packing up all of your stuff. There are your kids, fighting over stuff. There’s the robber, stealing someone’s stuff. There’s the envious, wanting another’s stuff. There’s the communist, confiscating stuff.

Try as you may through life, you will be forced to deal with stuff. Most of it looks pretty good when it’s new, but just becomes stuff in a very short while. Maybe that’s why they say the best stuff in life is stuff that’s not even stuff.

Comments

Stuff

You’ve got it. We’ve got it. Seems that nearly everyone’s got it—stuff, I mean. Stuff is the stuff that we have sitting around our houses, garages, and especially basements. Some people go so far as to have stuff stored in a separate facility across town, or at an in-law’s house strewn across their front yard, or at any number of Auxiliary Stuff Storage Locations.

Rich people have stuff, and usually lots of it. Interestingly, though, even poor people seem to have lots of stuff, although stuff of a lesser quality or luster. Young people have stuff, too, but old people generally have even more stuff (out-of-style stuff, to be sure). Before you’re even born, people are holding “showers” and giving you stuff. Each year you’ll celebrate your age, and they will give you more stuff. And after you’re gone, they’ll bicker over the stuff you’ve left behind.

In our own home, we have stuff stored behind other stuff. Some stuff sits on top of other stuff, while other stuff just hides behind stuff. Some stuff is stuffed behind stuff, while still other stuff is out on display. But the older we get, the more we live, the more stuff we seem to have.

It’s not all bad, really. Some stuff is pretty important. Take refrigerators, for instance. That’s the kind of stuff that we all need—what’s inside them, that is—and toilets and furniture and forks and cars and stamps and beds and a pretty huge, boring, and definitely too-long list of stuff that we actually need around.

But what drives me crazy is the rest of the stuff: the stuff that we just accumulate, like knick-knacks…tall ones and short ones, big ones and small, ugly ones and stylish things your wife got at the mall, dusty stuff and old stuff and broken stuff and kids’ stuff, pet stuff and loaned stuff and present stuff and forgotten stuff.

Whenever I hear about someone who likes to shop, I picture a big pile of stuff. Isn’t that really what shopping is, driving around trading money for more stuff? Drive it home and put it in amongst all your other stuff. And eventually, the total inventory of stuff gets quite overwhelming. This is because of the sticky nature of most stuff.

The most dangerous combination in a marriage is a shopper married to a pack rat. One makes a hobby out of buying stuff while the other refuses to part with stuff. The home of such a couple gets stuffed with stuff.

What can one do with all this stuff? Cram it and stuff it and store it and hide it. Or one can sell it. This is interesting because who in the world would want someone’s stuff when everybody already has more than enough stuff of their own? I know. It is a perplexing puzzle, but people with stuff actually buy the stuff of other people with stuff at events called garage sales (although garages are not for sale), yard sales, or auctions. People line up to buy your stuff. They are even willing to pay twenty-six cents for stuff that cost you $450.

Or, you can give away some stuff. Pack it and wrap it and box it and donate it. The taxman will even give you a credit for giving away the stuff. This is so you will have more money to buy more stuff, and the government can tax the purchases and get money to buy stuff of its own, such as $600 toilet seats and $345 screw drivers. Given this, it is easy to see why even the government has garage sales (called federal liquidations) once in while: to sell us the stuff they bought with the money they took from us when we bought our stuff. It’s a stuff cycle of perpetual renown.

And that brings me to recycling. This is a concept where other people express concern over what you do with your stuff. (They don’t care what you do with it while you possess it, only when you discard it.) They say some stuff should be ground up or melted or something and made into other stuff. It’s another stuff cycle.

It seems, now that I have taken such an in-depth, scientific look into the nature of stuff, that stuff is like a bad case of athlete’s foot—very difficult to get rid of. Take a trip someplace, and there your wife is packing up all of your stuff. There are your kids, fighting over stuff. There’s the robber, stealing someone’s stuff. There’s the envious, wanting another’s stuff. There’s the communist, confiscating stuff.

Try as you may through life, you will be forced to deal with stuff. Most of it looks pretty good when it’s new, but just becomes stuff in a very short while. Maybe that’s why they say the best stuff in life is stuff that’s not even stuff.